


Ungrateful

by FuriousPoplar



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Depression, Gen, I project a lot, POV Second Person, Post-Pacifist Route, Reader Is Chara, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Swearing, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Wow this is edgy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-10-18 21:12:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10625247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FuriousPoplar/pseuds/FuriousPoplar
Summary: Something's wrong with you, again. But you're not going to let anyone help, they'll just make it all more complicated. You don't deserve help, and you don't need help, you need to get your act together. You'll figure it out eventually, right? But not without hurting some people, first. They only want to support you, you know.Well, of course you know. You just don't care, do you?





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm working on a big project right now but I felt bad for not uploading anything in 3 months but this gratuitously angsty garbage fire was all I could come up with. I'll try and do some fluff or something soon, I guess.
> 
> Also, big honking warning for mentions of (hypothetical) graphic violence, 7000 words of an incredibly toxic mindset, and explicit self-harm. If this sounds like it'd be unpleasant for you, please spare yourself the trouble.

                It ended up sneaking up on you; you can’t pinpoint when, exactly, it started. There’s a big blurry zone where you remember not being the best off but it wasn’t quite like  _ this _ , yet. Maybe there was a reason. There was that doctors visit you had, where you went in expecting an hour of wasted time and left with three bottles of pills, a surplus of colorful little capsules of carefully measure depressants and stimulants with names not even you can pronounce. You hadn’t been happy about it, to say the least. But, well, you can live with that, can you not? That couldn’t have been it. Instead, maybe it was that chip you put in the blade of your knife. Your special knife. The one you shouldn’t even use, anymore, now that Undyne got you a fancy modern one. It should stay locked away next to your stash of chocolates and the family photograph you refuse to let Frisk know you have, safe and secure. But, you had been careless, and you had been stupid, and now you’ve done damage you cannot reverse. You always did hate that feeling.

But you don’t think that’s it, either. You don’t know what it is. Maybe it's your schoolwork, the fear of being a disappointment. But that isn’t anything new. Maybe it’s more old memories coming back to haunt you, ones that don’t exist anywhere outside your own conscience. It could be anything, really. You don’t know what caused it, but you can discern the effects, plain and simple. Things that should make you happy just start making you angry. Smiles come off as insults in disguise, coming in or going out. You can’t shake the knowledge that nobody wants you anywhere, yourself least of all. Whatever little problem you’ve been stuck with all your life keeps pressing on your shoulders and your chest and your head and crushing you down, down into an irritable little welt of confusion and gratuitous misery. So you can tell, then, that something is wrong, that you are not “Okay”, as you would normally insist. But then, this is not a first for you, either.  _ “So what is it  _ _ this _ _ time?”  _ you find yourself repeating, again and again. Then, you stop to think about it and realize that you have no clue.

  
  
  


                You don’t say a lot of nice things about yourself, do you? You prefer to accentuate the negatives since that’s what everyone sees first anyway. It’s a habit that causes those who found a way to love you a great deal of pain, which further serves to prove your point, in your mind. But, you’ll allow yourself the small pride that you’re good at hiding things. In the midst of this mood-swing of yours, life carries on around you, unphased by your broodiness. When Asriel teases you, as he is oft to do, with nothing but friendship and playfulness behind it, you smile and laugh and tease right back even though you can barely hear him past an incessant voice in your head, seething and burning and raging at how  _ annoying _ he is, at how  _ stupid _ he is and at how much worse he’s making everything. This voice, it isn’t one you agree with. In fact, you would describe yourself as hating it to your very core. Because none of those things are true, and you know it full well. So why do you  _ feel  _ that way? Why is the voice even there?

You don’t know. You don’t know why it’s there, you don’t know why it hates your family so much and you don’t know why you keep listening to it, just long enough to hear it out but not quite long enough to be convinced of anything. You keep feeling these little pangs of hate, these urges to yell and slam doors and lock yourself away from the people you know you love, and you haven’t a clue why. But, thankfully, you’re good at hiding it, or at least you thought you were. You can’t stand the poisonous, vile thoughts that keep running through your head, but you had figured that you could keep them contained until you could stop them, at least. But when Frisk hears the strain in your voice and sees the slight twitch of your left eye and almost feels exactly whatever it is you’re feeling, because of course, of course they would know all of your tells better than anyone, even Asriel ever could, they know something’s wrong. They want to know what, and they want to help, of course, because that’s what they do. Because despite the care they insist you keep them under, they’re more help than you’ll ever be. They’re a good person. They worry about you. They care about you. And they hate your fake smiles even more than you do.

“What’s wrong?” they ask you as you’re getting ready for bed one night, face and tone so grim that it almost drives you to nausea.

You gargle a string of gibberish out through your mouthful of toothpaste, trying to elicit even the smallest of giggles so that you can swat their worry away like a fly not worth squashing. They don’t so much as grin. Instead, they wait patiently for you to finish, eyes every bit as piercing as you like to think yours can be, even in the mirror’s reflection.

“Mm, minty,” you say, for some reason. “Nothing is wrong,” you follow up, surprising neither them nor yourself. You turn away from them and towards your own reflection, as little as you enjoy looking at it. You lose yourself for a moment, then, remembering how different clenching your teeth or fists felt when you had to use Frisk’s body to do it. Another small pride you’ll allow yourself is that your body is much more fun to abuse.

You catch their expression change from your peripherals and don’t look. You don’t need to; you can guess how they’re staring up at you, right about now. Some halfway between frustration and concern that they’ve always had perfected. You gaze into your own strange, red, big buggy eyes and hope that Frisk decides to stop being so insufferably ‘nice’ to you for once. So ‘helpful’. So ‘loving’. So nosy.

They take a small breath and you sing-song a chant of,  _ “Don’t Lie Don’t Lie Don’t Lie”  _ over and over in your head before they mutter it out loud, almost defeatedly. They continue with, “Is it me?”, spoken so quiet that you almost mistake it for that churlish little voice that’s been giving you so much grief.

_ Of course it is, _ something tells you to say, but that isn’t true.

_ It is now that you’re pressing, _ something tells you to say, but that would simply be childish.

_ How am I supposed to answer that,  _ something tells you to say, and you silently admit that it poses a good point.

“Of course not, Frisk,” you gently tell them, smiling a brittle smile that you know they can see through like glass. “I am not upset, I promise. Certainly not with you.”

“I said no lying.”

_ I’ll do what I please,  _ something tells you to say.

_ I don’t care what you said, _ something tells you to say.

_ Leave me alone,  _ something tells you to say.

“Drop it,” you snap at them, and it isn’t quite what you were told, but you suppose that it’s close enough. You feel accomplished as you watch their piercing stare blunt and fall to the floor. You march out of the bathroom past them, and they trail behind you like a beaten dog all the way to the bedroom. Once you get there, they give your shoulder a gentle tap (you shiver.  _ Don’t touch me)  _ and throw their arms around you before you can finish turning around.

“I’m sorry…” they mumble into your nightshirt, “I don’t know what I did but ‘m sorry.”

Your hands hang limply by your sides, trembling. The voice can’t decide if they should be clenched into fists or shoving them away. But you know you shouldn’t do that either, because now you’ve hurt them. You were impatient and mean and petty to them, even though they wanted nothing more than to you make you feel better, and now they think they’re at fault, even though nothing could be further from the truth. It’s all your fault. You hurt them  _ again. _

You raise your trembling hands and place them on their back. “I’m not mad at you. Really, I’m not,” you promise, and they hug you tighter.

“Then what’s wrong?” they ask, pausing afterward. “...Don’t wanna talk about it?”

_ Take a wild guess, _ something tells you to say.

_ Look who clued in,  _ something tells you to say.

_ What the fuck do you think, _ something tells you to say.

You get a hold of yourself and ignore it.  _ Grow up, _ you tell yourself,  _ They don’t need this from you. Your temper tantrum has started causing damage and now it’s time to  _ _ stop _ _. _

“No, I don’t,” you tell them, rubbing their back. “But thanks for looking out for me. You’re a good friend,” you say. A stock response; generic and insincere, at least coming from you. They don’t seem to notice. You go to bed caught feeling a halfway between guilt and anger, maybe with some self-pity in there too (but that just amps up the anger). What  _ is _ wrong, huh? What is it with you  _ this  _ time, Chara? Normally, you should at least have an excuse for acting like such an asshole to them. To someone who wants nothing but the best for you. To someone trying to  _ help _ . And yet, as kind and helpful as they were, you hated them for it. You wanted your ‘space’. You wanted your ‘peace’. Why are you like this? Why are you so ungrateful?

  
  
  


                You don’t get much sleep, and you wake up at five-thirty-four feeling groggy and irritable. You’re not about to pretend that you’ve ever been good at sleep, if that even makes sense. A lifetime of steadily worsening night-terrors and a chronically wandersome mind have ruined the pleasure of it almost entirely for you, and you make a point of getting up early every day, although usually by choice. You sit alone at the kitchen table, slouched and limp in your usual wooden chair like you’d been shot between the eyes. In a movie, it would have been a dramatic death, with a neat little hole on the front and a grapefruit sized chunk of your toxic personality blown out the back, with a big chunky splatter-mark spread across the floral wallpaper like strawberry jam. Your eyes would roll back and your jaw would fall open as the shot’s report echoed throughout the room, a single shell casing skipping across the linoleum. Maybe some sad (or happy?) music would play as the camera pans around your lifeless body.

You have a well-earned laugh at yourself. In reality, you look like a sleepy, mouth-breathing garbage sack, carried away by another macabre fantasy. You feel… placated, you guess you could call it. That  _ thing,  _ your little problem, you can feel it looming over you still, but it’s on its fifteen for now. You're on your own, soaking in the silence of a sleeping home and the pale gray morning light. An analog clock ticks steadily somewhere in the house. You smile; you love those old clocks. You never use them, only Mom is antiquated enough to bother, but the repetition has always calmed your nerves.

You feel as though you’re wasting time, justifiably so. Sitting here letting the minutes tick by. You should get your day started, maybe do your chores in advance so Mom can wake up to a nice clean kitchen. If you could cook to save your damn life you’d have felt a compulsion to start on some form of breakfast. There are things you meant to do today, probably. But it can all wait. You splay your arms out across the table, creating a nest for your head to lay face-down in. Frisk will be the next one to wake. They didn’t always use to be an early riser, they’ve explained to you, but it’s a habit you sort of implanted into them, in another timeline where you had only one life to share. They’ll ask you how your sleep was, and you’ll tell them okay because ‘good’ is too much of a lie, but ‘bad’ will raise questions. If you don’t pick your face off the table and fix your hideous posture, they’ll ask if you’re doing alright, and they won’t believe it if you say ‘yes’, now will they? You’re an idiot— you don’t think you could possibly have handled last night worse. So you need to sit up straight, smile, look lively, all of that, so that maybe they’ll think you’ve gotten better, but they’ll still  _ ask  _ if you’ve gotten better, and you had better not crack your voice or stutter. The table’s cold surface feels good on your cheek. You don’t want to move. You wish you were invisible, or a ghost again. Able to be in whatever sorry state you wanted without arousing undeserved sympathy.

The clock’s ticking turns malicious as you grow to dread the sound of footsteps on the stairs. It finally comes ten minutes later, and you pick yourself up off the table and look like you were just enjoying your morning. Frisk asks everything you thought they would, and you answer with everything you thought you should. There was a time when you dreamed of being able to talk to them like this, face to face. Where a normal life like the one you find yourself in was a far-flung fantasy. And here you are, feeling like it isn’t enough. Why can’t you just be happy? Why are you so ungrateful?

  
  
  


                A few days pass. You did okay, you hoped. You have a couple of good days, enough that you almost forget the rut you’re in. Asriel and Frisk look a little less worried. But then there was today, where you woke up feeling wrong. Angry. Hateful. You could barely stand to look at your own reflection, or Frisk, or Asriel, or anyone. You walked your school’s halls, a judgemental sea of faces, with your head bowed. Maybe a classmate noticed. Maybe one will break their routine of never speaking to you, leaving you with the pleasure of trying to explain whatever the fuck is the matter with you to someone you don’t trust on principle. 

(Maybe, you think belatedly, it’d have helped if you got yourself together and stopped telegraphing everything so much.)

You consider beelining it for home and not bothering to meet up with your siblings. It’d give you a few minutes of silence and isolation, something that sounds delightful to you. But it’d raise questions.  _ “Why didn’t you wait for us?”  _ they’ll ask.  _ “Is something wrong?”  _ they’ll ask.  _ “You can talk to us,” _ they’ll promise, well intentioned, but they don’t understand. Nobody understands, especially you. So you rendezvous with them as per usual, and they ask how your day was, and you choke out a, “fine” and ask them how theirs was. You keep your pace up, staying slightly in front of them.

Once you’re off campus, Asriel goes to hold your hand. You know, that thing he does every day, because he’s a big dumb affectionate softie. You tear it away as though his touch had burned you, and you lock eyes, for a moment, before you turn away. You saw concern aplenty. Here we go.

“Chara?” he asks right on cue, looking so hopelessly confused. Frisk makes a small, worried noise somewhere behind you. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” you reply without hesitation, slowly dropping your hand down by your side. You think it’d help your case if you offered to hold his hand yourself, but just the thought of doing so fills you with a horrible writhing itch.

“It’s not nothing,” he says, and he _stops_ , why is he _stopping_ , you just want to go _home_ _why is he making everything so fucking complicated?_

Except he isn’t, is he? He’s trying to fix whatever is going on here. Because you’re not okay, and that much is obvious to him. So, like a good brother, a good friend, a good whatever the hell he even is to you, he wants to help. He wants to support you. You want him to drop it, drop you, let you fall right back down to rock bottom as he hides his eyes and carries on as though everything was normal. You feel sick. You keep walking, leaving him and Frisk behind. You can feel the funny looks they’re giving the back of your head.

“Chara?” he calls after you, starting to move again. His paw pads scrape audibly against the sidewalk, and your brain takes a quick detour to wonder why it doesn’t hurt. “Chara, hey, where are you going?” he asks, catching up to you and putting a hand on your shoulder.

_ Where do you think,  _ something tells you to say.

_ None of your business,  _ something tells you to say.

_ The hell do you care,  _ something tells you to say.

“Home,” you tell him, shaking his hand off. You resist the urge to scratch at the spot he grabbed.

“I’m, um, I’m listening if you want to talk about whatever’s got you upset,” he says, ignoring every ounce of hostility you’ve needlessly thrown his way. You bite back an urge to scream and keep moving. He doesn’t say anything else, but you spend the whole walk silently daring him to.  _ Give me a reason,  _ you think at him and rightfully despise yourself for it,  _ give me a reason to yell at you.  _ Something ugly bubbles in your heart, caustic like acid, forcing its way up your throat and burning your tongue. So that’s twice, now. Twice that someone you love to pieces has offered you nothing but kindness, and twice that you’ve thrown it back in their face. What’s gotten into you, anyway? You’re still thinking about it. You wonder if there’s any reason at all, or if you just haven’t been getting enough attention lately and felt like lashing out. You felt despicable enough the first time you did it, why did you do it again? Why did you do it the first time? What’s next, are you going to bite Mom’s head off when she goes to tuck you in? Maybe you’ll curse Papyrus out for saying that he believes in you. Who knows what you’ll do next, or why you’ll do it? Why are you so ungrateful?

  
  
  


                After an evening of awkward glances and hushed whispers about you, your siblings confront you as you’re about to climb into bed. Confront is far too strong a word for it, granted, but that voice in your head insists on the terminology. It sounds more dramatic, more worthy of the inordinate anger you react to it with.

“Hey…” your brother starts, hands folded into each other.  _ Weird,  _ you think,  _ he’s not normally one to fidget.  _ “I talked with Frisk, and they told me that you aren’t mad at  _ them _ , so I know it’s not that. Are you mad at  _ me? _ ” he asks with a soft inflection and worried eyes.

You gently shake your head. “I am not mad at you, Azzy. You did nothing wrong,” you say, clenching and unclenching your fists behind your back. You probably look like a psychopath again. You should do your ‘creepy face’, also colloquially known as your best attempt at a formal smile. It’d really sell the image.

Asriel nods slowly. “Alrighty. I’m glad to hear. But, we’ve both noticed that something’s really bothering you, and I know that you don’t seem to want to talk about it, but we’re really worried about you.”

You grind your teeth. “I appreciate the thought, I really do,” you lie. Why is it a lie? You  _ should _ appreciate their worrying. “...But I am fine,” you say yet again, still fully aware that neither of them believes you.

“Please don’t lie,” Frisk interjects, and you shoot them a venomous glare before you think to stop yourself. They shy away, looking guilty. Your stomach starts to ache.

“Chara, we just want to help you,” Asriel pleads. “You’re not fine. Please tell us what’s wrong. We won’t judge you or anything.” He takes a small step towards you, and your heart races. He’s cornering you. You’re stuck here, aren’t you? They’re  _ demanding _ an explanation. You had better think fast. Anger melts away into panic as your eyes dart between the two of them. You’ve fucked up. You manipulated them into this position, and now you’ve trapped yourself in it with them. You don’t have an explanation. You don’t have a ‘something’. Nobody’s picking on you like they did to Frisk last term. You aren’t wracked with guilt, like Asriel must be almost every day. It’s all just  _ you _ . You’re  _ broken _ . You’re  _ unstable. _ You’ll never be happy.

You mute the voice out, as best you can. “I,” you stop and start, taking a small step back. “I have to go to the bathroom,” you say, and your brother hesitantly steps out of your way. You march out the door, down the hall and down the stairs. Mom went to bed early tonight, thankfully. You’re free to throw yourself onto the couch and cram your face into the nook of the armrest. 

 

You wake up at five again the next morning with a stiff back and a blurry memory. It’s hard to tell if anything that happened last night was real— you have recollection of it all, but it’s hard to believe even you could botch something so badly. You’re in hot water, now. They would have waited for you. They didn’t come after you because they knew something was very, very wrong. They’re going to tell Mom. They’re going to— Mom will probably make you go see a doctor, or put you on even more pills, and she’ll make sure someone's always watching you so you don’t do anything self-destructive. You’ve really done it this time. You roll onto your back and the rotations of the ceiling fan as you listen to that incessant clock tick by, counting down to the confrontation you’re going to have to have with your whole family, this time. All at once. No escape. You feel tears start to well up in your eyes, but you scratch them away. You did this to yourself. With the way you were showing off, most people would’ve thought this was what you wanted. You have no right to cry, even more so than usual.

Frisk is the first one down, again. They shuffle over to the couch and lean over the back, looking down at you with a sad expression. “Don’t tell anyone,” is all you say to them, voice hoarse. They nod, after a moment, and shuffle back into the kitchen to get some water or something. You don’t really care. They’re off your back, for now. You bought a little bit of time, another chance to dodge all their help. The voice calls them all annoying, nosy, says they keep getting in your hair, that they make everything worse and that they need to  _ leave you alone _ . You hate the voice, of course, but you listen, laying still on the couch, familiar questions racing through your mind. Why do you hate them so much? Why won’t you let them help you? Why are you so ungrateful?

  
  
  


                You stay home ‘sick’ the next day, staggering down the stairs and up to Toriel’s chair with claims of nausea and a splitting headache; the usual things that she can’t disprove with a thermometer. She doesn’t question you at all, instead she simply nods knowingly and tells you to get lots of rest. You do just that. Sort of. You’re awake the whole time, but you’re in bed, at least. That’s sort of rest. Not that it matters, you aren’t sick at all. At least, your body isn’t sick. You mull over the last few months in your head, trying to retrace your steps to figure out what got you here. This has been going on for… a while now, you suppose you could say. It was in the background, before. You thought it was normal. Everyone has bad days. This, what you’re stuck in now, it isn’t new. Way back when, it happened periodically when you were obsessing over your ‘destiny’, your ‘obligation’ to all monsterkind. Or, maybe, you couldn’t stop thinking of how you’re a burdensome child who your family did not deserve to become stuck with.

(It’s something you still think of, actually. Some things don’t change.)

But all of that, all of that confusion and stress and fear, all of that inadequacy, those should be gone. They _fixed_ you. Frisk and Asriel and Mom and Dad and everyone else _fixed_ you. You aren’t supposed to be like this anymore. You made your mistakes (both forgiven and unforgivable), you learned your lessons (the easy way and especially the hard way), and you were brought back. The _effort_ that has gone into your life, the _strain_ and the _work_ you’ve caused your loved ones, it’s monumental. It’s a debt you can never repay, and a loan that you would never have taken on your own accord. It was forced on you, technically. But you have no right to complain. Who doesn’t want to live?

(Toriel told you once, that there are no stupid questions, but you’re a firm believer that all rules have exceptions.)

But they fixed you, you’re supposed to be okay now. You’re supposed to be happy now. You aren’t supposed to be pushing away everyone who worked so hard so you could be here. You aren’t supposed to be miserable for no reason. You’re ruining this miraculous second chance that nobody, yourself least of all, should ever have been given. And, ultimately, it shouldn’t be hard. You have no more battles to fight. No more people to set free. No more children to guide. Your work is done. You’re practically in retirement.

_ So what is wrong with you? Why can’t you do anything right? Why are you so WORTHLESS? _

You get an idea, then, and you struggle not to laugh at its absurdity. You slide yourself out from under the covers and sit on the edge of your bed, eyes taking no time at all to adjust to the dim gray light filling the room from the windows. You slide your bedside table’s drawer open, your ‘special drawer’. The one that each of you has, the one where you put your special possessions that your siblings are not to look through. Inside, between a tattered, small blue book, a cheery family photograph, and a box of chocolates, is your knife. Your special knife. It’s an item with history, you’d say. Spotty, ugly history. It hasn’t brought even a shred of good into this world. All it has ever been used for is causing harm. You like this knife. You shouldn’t, considering what it’s done to you. What you’ve done with it. You should have thrown it away a long time ago. You should have left it right where you found it, as a matter of fact. 

You run your thumb down the spine of the blade, focusing on the chill of the metal. Just enough below room temperature to be noticeable. You press the flat of it into your palm, not bothering to be careful. It’s beyond blunt, at this point. Scratched up. Rusted, in a few spots. Chipped (good going). It looks like a war relic, found in the attic, wrapped up in a dusty flag with the rest of an old veteran’s kit. You ponder, then, what type of knife it actually is. It isn’t a specific design you can recognize, but the sturdy hilt and wide, flat shape of the blade make its purpose quite obvious. Maybe it’s been hurting people for generations before you found it. You suppose it’s an honor, of a morbid sort, to carry on its legacy. 

The blade is quite useful, you’ve found. Blunted, but hard enough to punch through all sorts of materials, given a good enough swing. Maneuverable enough to weed with, or cut flowers from the garden. Dull enough to use to pick at your fingernails (or your teeth, although as cool as Asriel thought it was at the time, he was also really, really afraid you’d hurt yourself and started to cry. Still, it got the pie crumbs out). But the handle. The handle of it, you love. It’s weighty, made of a waxed-over oak wood. It feels good, powerful in your hand. And the pommel, if there’s enough of one for you to call it as such, there’s something in particular it is very good at. You flip it into the air, catching the blade between your index finger and thumb.  _ Is this what I’m going to fall back to,  _ you ask yourself, not bereft of humor. This habit of yours, by the time you finally stopped doing it, way back when, it had basically become a running gag. To do it now, after so long, after so many promises that you were ‘better’, it feels like it’d be a bad joke.

You pull up your sleeve, raise your hand and tap the handle against your left forearm experimentally. It makes a quiet  _ slap  _ as it hits the skin. You chuckle.  _ Is this for real?  _ you ask yourself. You bring the handle down on your arm again, harder this time. It doesn’t hurt so much as it makes your arm feel numb.  _ Why not,  _ you say.  _ I may as well. _

You hit again, harder. And again, harder. You hit and keep hitting until it stops being  _ slaps _ and starts being  _ whacks _ . You can’t feel your arm anymore, so you hit harder. Defeats the point if you can’t feel it, probably. What _ is _ the point of this, actually? You laugh. Hell if you know.

“Worthless,” you say through your teeth, cracking up before you can even finish the word.  _ Did I really just say that? Wow.  _ You try to follow up with something like, “Should’ve stayed dead,” or “Can’t even kill yourself right,” but you can’t keep a straight face.

You’re still hitting, a big ugly bruise growing just below your elbow. You’re not even really doing it consciously anymore. Just like old times.  _ Congratulations, _ you tell yourself, still laughing,  _ this is how low you’ve sunk, then. _

Another hit.  _ Maybe I’ll dye my hair black and slick it down over one eye, _ you think, laughing harder. Another hit.  _ Show up to school wearing all darks and curse out random kids as we pass in the halls.  _ Another hit.  _ Half-ass a suicide attempt again for some more attention. Complete the stereotype.  _ Because that’s all you are, at this point. A bad caricature. An old joke, one that wasn’t even that funny to begin with. Just look at yourself. You’re not even doing much damage. You’ve been hit harder. You’ve hit others harder _.  _ You think you’ve been suffering, lately? You’ve died. You’ve  _ killed _ . What you’re feeling is nothing next to what you’ve inflicted on others. It’s paltry, measly, incomparable. You don’t even know what suffering _ is _ .

Now this, this is all hilarious to you. You’re practically roaring by now, it’s all so ridiculous. You kicked this dumb habit years ago, and yet, here you are. Like a big kid trying to cram into one of the baby swings. Another hit. The knife slips from your grasp and falls to the floor, sliding under your nightstand. “Oops,” you say. You use your fist, instead, but it’s not as effective. You slam your arm into your nightstand a few times. Works much better.

Another hit. You hear something crack, and stop, balling and unballing your shaking fists experimentally. Still works. You can’t feel your arm at all, anymore. From your elbow to six inches down, its polka-dotted with deep brown and purple bruises. You pull your sleeve down; covers it all up. You pride yourself on your control, not missing and catching yourself on the hand, or somewhere more visible. No explaining to do, this time, it’ll all be gone in a week or two, no scars, no proof. You fish your knife out from under the nightstand (using your good arm) and place it back in the drawer. You feel accomplished.

That feeling doesn’t last more than five seconds, and then you’re laughing your ass off. “Did I seriously just do that?” you ask nobody, unable to contain your laughter. It sort of sucks, actually. This is the best joke that you’ll never be able to tell anyone.

_ We just want to help, Chara, _ something reminds you.

_ Please tell us what’s wrong,  _ something reminds you.

_ We love you,  _ something reminds you.

_ This is easier, _ you think, finally getting a grip on yourself. You lie back down, feeling peaceful.

 

Your head is in your hands five minutes later as you pathetically rock back and forth, asking yourself, over and over,  _ Why is the only thing you’re good at something you promised to never do again? What is wrong with you?  _

 

 

  
                Some time passes. Days, certainly. A week, probably. Maybe a few weeks. You’re not really paying attention. You fake a lot of smiles. There are real ones, every now and then, you aren’t free of distractions; how could you be, with how full of love and joy your life is? But your default, now, seems to be whatever you’ve become stuck with.

Today is shopping day. You never liked shopping or the crowds that come with, and Toriel knows this, so while she leans in through your door and gently asks if you would like to come with, she doesn’t expect you to say yes. And you don’t, because wow, do you not want to leave the house, aside from the usual reasons. She nods understandingly and tells you that it is quite alright, but that Alphys will be by shortly to watch over you. You don’t know how to take that. Maybe you should be upset, because you don’t need a babysitter, and you were hoping it’d be Sans, because he at least would just pass out on the couch and leave you alone unless you made an effort to talk to him. Maybe you should be confused, Toriel’s omission of an ‘and Undyne’ sticking out prominently in your mind. You guess she’s busy or something. Oh well. Alphys is far from what you’d describe as assertive. If you ask for peace and quiet, she’ll probably grant it to you.

You shuffle downstairs and sit in the reading chair, setting your sewing supplies on your lap and pretending to work. You’re starting to get a handle back on the whole ‘looking normal’ thing. Frisk gives you a pat on the shoulder instead of the hug you were expecting (and not really looking forward to) as the three of them leave with a quick goodbye and Alphys arrives. She’s carrying a satchel or a bookbag of some sort under her arm. It looks packed to capacity.

“Uh. H-Hey, Chara,” she greets. You wave, pretending to focus on your knitting. “So,” she says, standing awkwardly by the door.

“So?” you ask.

“I uh, Asriel told me on the phone that you haven’t quite been feeling yourself lately, before I came over,” she starts, and you want to scream. You just can’t escape this, can you? “...And I figured that instead of a more, uh, u-usual day, that I could just bring some movies over for us to watch. I-If you’re feeling up to it, I mean.”

_ Hmm, _ you think ponderously. “What do you got?”

She shrugs off her bag onto the couch and starts the process of taking everything out. “Well, I mean, I said ‘movies’ but that’s just my codeword for a big garbage heap of anime. S-Suprise surprise, eheh.”

You lean over in your chair to try and get a better look. “I brought some of the classics,” she says, briefly holding up  _ Mew-Mew Kissy Cutie  _ and  _ Joe-Schmoe’s Befuddling Journey.  _ “Some more, ah, obscure ones that I don’t think you’ve seen?” Another handful of cases scatters across the couch; true to her word, they don’t strike you as familiar. “I even brought…” she starts, trailing off with a sigh. “I even brought Mew-Mew 2, although I still don’t get why you like it so much. Or at all.”

You grin smarmily. “Because it is a fantastic exploration of narrative threads only barely touched on in the first one, and an extremely interesting interpretation of the titular character, who was before, may I remind you, a borderline mary-sue.”

“It’s poop-garbage that spat on a fun and wholesome series with that psychopath brain-washing crap,” she adroitly retorts. “B-But if you like it, that’s okay? Oh,” she says, sounding… sly? You don’t think it suits her. “I also brought some, uh, eheheh, s-some things I probably shouldn’t show you?”

“Porn!” you shout excitedly.

“NO! N-No! I wouldn’t— I— y-y-you’re too— you’re just a—!” she sputters, now beet red. 

“Kidding. Although I like the implication that my age is the only thing dissuading you,” you say, smile widening into something even crueler.

She glares at you. It’s sort of feeble. “Oh my god? I-I wouldn’t for a  _ lot _ of reasons! No, it’s because they’re, uh, really violent. Like  _ really _ violent. But, you’ve… already seen a lot of r-real violence. I think you probably know the difference and all.”

You nod stiffly, unsure of what you can add to that. “Let me see.” She hand picks and tosses you a case; the cover looks pretty cool, some blue-haired chick with a power armor suit and a big blocky assault rifle on a stark white background, with bold, scary red letters forming a title you can’t read. 

“There’s a part in the middle where the main character— o-oh, that’s the girl on the cover, where she gets into this big suit of mech-armor with a cannon and a chainsaw on it, and these guys come to kill her, and— oh, well, eheh, I guess I shouldn’t spoil it but it gets pretty gnarly,” she explains excitedly.

“Sounds good,” you say, smiling and passing the case back to her. She puts the disk in the player and sits down on the couch on the middle cushion; not so far away from you as to seem as though she’s avoiding you, but still with a healthy gap. You appreciate how considerate she is.

It’s subs, not dubs, following her and your preference both. Makes it easier to talk over all the important stuff. It starts with some dramatic scene with a lot of moody lighting and brooding soliloquies— Alphys explains that there’s a lot of slow character development in it, too. You’re not paying much attention, but you’re alright with simply leaning back in your chair for now.

“So,” she says, fiddling with the volume. You thought it was fine, before. She’s just fidgeting, maybe. “How are you do... holding up?”

Your smile, faint and relaxed, before, strains. “I’m fine.”

She smiles back; it’s ugly and plastic. You can see straight through it. It looks familiar. “How long have you been fine?”

You glance over at her; she’s got a forlorn sort of look on her face. Tired, well-weathered, like she came right from the front-lines. You take a quick breath; you’re sick of lying, anyway. “I don’t know,” you admit. “Weeks. Months. Maybe years. It’s on an off.”

“A-And it’s on right now?”

You nod. “Don’t tell anyone. Frisk and Asriel know and that’s bad enough,” you rush out, bracing for a,  _ “Bad how?”  _ or  _ “They just want to help”  _ or something else you already know.

“I won’t,” she says instead. “Some days you just can’t bear to face them.”

You frown. “It’s— cowardice, is what it is. Plain cowardice. I act this way and then refuse to acknowledge it. Then they show up, trying to find out what’s wrong, and I don’t have what it takes to tell them that I’m just on the fritz again, and that I need to get my shit together.”

She frowns, too. It’s far sadder than yours. “Maybe. I-I don’t know. I used to think that a lot.” You give her a funny look, for a moment, before you remember a whole lot of things about Alphys.

_ Oh, _ you think.

“Oh,” you whisper.

Oh.

“Sorry,” you say, looking down at your knitting needles.

“No, no it’s o-okay!” she says, raising her hands. “I mean, that’s how you’re feeling too, right?”

You nod again.

“I get it. You got these people who r-really want to help you, and that’s a good thing, and you know you’re supposed to be g-grateful for them, but it’s just hard, sometimes, letting them in when you don’t think you deserve it.”

You start at the sound of an explosion and look to the screen for a moment, where all manners of mayhem and carnage are taking place. You slump to the side, bracing yourself on your left arm. It aches a bit. “All they want to do is help me,” you half-whisper. Alphys turns the volume down. “But I keep pushing them away. I hurt them.”

“N-Not just t-them…” she says, pointing weakly at your arm. Your sleeve rode up against the armrest, exposing every last bruise. You panic, snatching your cuff and pulling back down to your wrist.

“I tripped,” you tell her. “I know what it looks like, but—”

“Hey, I’m not g-gonna judge,” she promises, scratching idly at her wrist.

“...I’ll try not to do it again. It didn’t help anyway.”

“I-It never does.”

 

“...Hey,” she starts, staring past the TV screen. “M-Maybe… they can’t help you all the time? Sometimes, you really need a hug or something, but other times, it doesn’t work. You need s-some distance, or to be alone.”

You poke your forearm and wince. Shouldn’t have done that, probably. “Already found out what happens when I get to be alone,” you say. “I’m better off being watched.”

“Your b-brother, he actually, um,” she says, pausing for a moment. “He actually told Toriel to call me, instead of… I guess Sans or Asgore are your ‘usuals’? When your mom told me, I s-sort of knew why. I was a bit confused, I guess. I didn’t think he trusted me, not like that.”

“What do you mean ‘you knew’?”

You catch her eyes refocusing on the screen, taking in a second of blood and guts before she loses it again. “Undyne worries about you a lot,” she says, and you blink once, then twice. “Some of the things you say around her, it just— she says it reminds her too much of m-me. She and Toriel never really see eye to eye, but she respects her a lot for taking care of you.”

You contain a bitter laugh. Toriel doesn’t even  _ know _ its back. You made sure of that.

“But, I mean, we all w-worry about you, a little bit, at least. You’re family, and that’s just what family does. A-Anyway. If you wanna just sit here and veg out, I’m totally cool with that.”

You give a gentle nod. “Yeah. Yeah, okay,” you say, slouching further and getting comfy.

 

Eventually, the movie ends. Your siblings return. You give them both the best hug you can manage. It isn’t fantastic, by any stretch, but they seem happy. It feels nice. When Mom asks you what you did all day, you say that you just watched some cartoons.

It isn’t all as simple as that. That voice, your problem, it’s not going to disappear in an afternoon. Like you said, it’s on an off. Sometimes, to keep if off, it’s up to you. You know there’s a talk you will have to have with your siblings, at some point. But, you’ll allow yourself to admit, when you can use help, you know it’s never far. And for that, you are grateful.

  
  
  



End file.
